Brad,
Great to know you're no longer in the evacuate zone. 

The VariEze is looking fantastic!  Great progress!

Brad Grove wrote on Sep 10^th, 2020 at 6:41pm:


Glad your laminations worked out ok. 
The smoke hasn't helped this battle with bronchitis but doing well.  No danger of local fires but the smoke is hanging heavy in this area.  We live on the foothills in Kelso, WA and we can't see across the valley so much smoke! Almost reminds me of my youth in the LA area with the smog and days of smog alerts to stay inside and be careful breathing the smog. 

Stay safe Brad...caution is always the best policy when it comes to wild fires!  Things can change so fast!  Our best wishes to all those on the west coast dealing with the wild fires!  Praying for rain and low winds to bring them under control.
Tom

Thanks everyone for the LG ideas.  I have a feeling I may be revisiting them soon 

I got the bottom stringers in place and looking pretty good.  I cut out the opening for my LG attachment.  I also have a plain filler section to use when I fly it.

I dove into my first attempt at the curved landing gear.  I went with two strips of 1/32nd cut at 45 degrees across the grain.  In between these are my strip of aluminum with the balsa 1/32nd top and bottom with gain opposite the other side.  I soaked the 32nd in hot water and made the laminate sandwich and taped against a jar.  I then saturated the composite with thin CA - and part of my hand    I did a glue test prior and found that wood glue doesn't work at all (left end of test), metal/wood cement was next best (middle of test) but still no good but CA - Yes.  The photo shows the right hand CA test that has a layer of balsa from the test piece still attached.

Tomorrow afternoon I'll undo it and see how it turned out. 

Brad

If you're not using music wire, you might consider a thin strip of bamboo bent by heat treating the bend area either with a candle or soldering iron.  Just be careful in heating the bamboo or it will become brittle and not bend!  Don't ask how I discovered this!

Lots of area to the canard, so it should fly well. Looks different, so it draws the eye. Nice! 
ian

The mockup looks great.  I always have to do this too.  Just gotta see what she's starting to look like!  This is turning out very nice!

Was following your posts on HPA also and I think they answered your question about the belly of the plan.  That it was probably based on the prototype VW engined version.  You're making great progress!

You're making great progress.  Half the fun of this hobby is kit/plan bashing to make it to our liking! Watching to see this one come together!